Frank Castle. The Punisher.
He had come to Twin Islands under circumstances that did not reflect well on his judgment: recruited by Hydra on a false premise, sent to eliminate Rogers, and then introduced to what Astartes actually looked like in a direct engagement. The lesson had been thorough. He had been held at the base ever since.
David had attempted a brainwashing procedure on him three times.
Three times, Frank Castle had fought his way back out of it through willpower alone. Each time, after an interval, he had managed to retrieve the memories the procedure had taken. This was not a thing that happened with ordinary subjects. It was not a thing that happened with most Astartes. David had noted it, assessed it, and when the Inquisitor Plan took shape, had added Frank's name to the evaluation list immediately.
By now, Frank had access to a substantial portion of the Guardians of Terra's documentation: their origins, their current operational situation, the threats they were managing, the logic behind decisions that from the outside had looked like the behavior of a well-resourced criminal organization. Not the core classified material. But enough to understand what he had been working against, and why that had been a mistake, and what Hydra's destruction had meant in context. He had also, through the base's various facilities, seen Astartes operate against criminals and superpowered threats directly. He had formed opinions about what he observed.
He had not been permitted to leave.
The holding cell was underground, empty, and well lit in a functional way that made no concessions to comfort. Nolan came in on David's floating chair, still in the Starfire Glory, and sat looking at the man cross-legged on the metal floor.
Frank Castle, at rest, had the quality of something that had been under pressure for a very long time and had decided that pressure was simply the normal condition of existence. His face held an expression that stopped well short of peace but had arrived at something like equilibrium. The eyes were different, though. There was a steadiness in them that the rest of him had not quite achieved.
"When David told me you'd survived three brainwashing procedures through willpower," Nolan said, "I found it genuinely surprising. You reminded me of someone: a man named Sly Marbo. One of my earliest teachers, in a sense. He was legendary for the same quality, the kind of endurance that has nothing to do with physical capability."
He let that settle for a moment.
"Frank. What kept you?"
Frank looked at the question for a moment before answering. He raised one arm, the skin marked with the evidence of repeated self-inflicted injury during the procedures, and held it in front of him without apparent distress.
"My wife. My daughter. My son." He said it flatly, with the particular flatness of someone who has said the same words in their head so many times that the emotional temperature has been worn smooth, though the weight underneath was still clearly there. "The cruelest thing in this world isn't dying. It's forgetting. If the procedure had succeeded, my brain would have gradually lost the memories that are the deepest part of who I am." He paused. "I couldn't let them disappear. If I forget them, they stop existing. That is not something I'm willing to allow."
Nolan was quiet for a moment. Then: "What do you think of us now?"
Something shifted in Frank's expression. Not a smile exactly, but the edge of one.
"The Robot changed its approach after the third failure," he said. "It stopped trying to overwrite and started explaining. I know what the Guardians of Terra are attempting and why. I've seen the Astartes work. I've watched how they handle people who deserve handling." He considered his next words. "I'm not interested in arguments about freedom. I've spent years believing that the only thing standing between people and the worst of what humanity does to itself is someone willing to enforce a hard line. What I saw here confirmed that view. The methods are more extreme than anything I've worked with, but the underlying principle is the same."
He looked at Nolan directly.
"Hydra lied to me about Rogers. That's on me for not checking harder. And Hydra is gone now, which is something." A pause. "But there's something I don't understand. Looking at your capabilities, you clearly don't have a shortage of people who can handle combat. Why are you here personally?"
Nolan leaned forward slightly.
"Because the world is changing in ways that fighting power alone can't address. What I need is not another combatant. The earth you remember, where crime was neighborhood-scale and city-scale, that world is gone. What's replacing it is something considerably larger and more unstable. Countless people are experiencing a kind of internal pressure right now that makes them susceptible to the worst versions of themselves. The anger is real, and it's going to express itself whether we want it to or not."
He let the picture settle before continuing.
"What I need is someone who can be a fixed point. An individual, visible and consistent, who represents the idea that serious wrongdoing has consequences that are certain rather than procedural. Not a system, not an institution, not a department. A person. Someone who embodies accountability so directly that people in a given area understand without being told that the rules are being enforced by something that cannot be influenced or delayed."
Frank's brow had drawn together slightly. He was following the logic and not entirely comfortable with where it was going.
"What specifically would that involve?"
"What you're good at. Removing the guilty, at whatever scale the situation presents. But the scope is larger now than any single city. And if you're willing, the story of who you are and what you lost becomes part of it. Not as spectacle. As a reminder to people that there is someone out there who remembers what is worth protecting and acts on it. Let them remember your family alongside you."
Frank sat with that for a long time. The equilibrium in his expression gradually shifted to something with an edge to it, a readiness that had been present all along and was now moving toward the surface.
"If it is as straightforward as you're describing," he said, "then yes. I'll be your judge." A pause. "I've been in this cell long enough that I've started to miss the sound of criminals suffering. That's probably a sign."
Nolan rose from the floating chair. The Starfire Glory's repulsor systems engaged quietly as he came to his full height, and the massive vibranium wings behind the power backpack opened, spreading wide in the lit space of the cell as his mood lifted, filling the room with pale gold and shadow.
"Welcome to the team, Frank Castle."
He looked at the man standing up from the floor across from him, and let the title land with the weight it was meant to carry.
"Welcome, Inquisitor."